“It’s not the house that is haunted. It’s your son.”
Elise Reiner played by Lin Shaye, one of the main faces of the Insidious franchise, says these immortal words to the Lambert family who are dealing with a crisis that is a lot more sinister than they initially thought. Dalton Lambert played by Ty Simpkins who spends most of the first film in a coma is haunted a demonic entity from a place that Elise calls “The Further”. An endless misty, foggy world inhabited by twisted and tormented spirits of the dead. Dalton is not in a coma. It is revealed that he has a special gift and that he can astral project his consciousness into another world. Dalton’s spirit has been captured by a demon called Lipstick-Face Demon who wants to possess his physical body. Lipstick-Face Demon is a mischievous and creepy little thing that is a fan of the singer Tiny Tim. It is played by the franchise’s composer Joseph Bishara. Patrick Wilson who plays Dalton’s father Josh goes into The Further to find and save his son. Josh also can astral project and his memories were repressed in order to save him from a supposedly old woman wearing a black wedding dress. Dalton returns to the real world, but Josh is possessed by the Old Woman and the second film is all about trying to save Josh. And also finding out the origins of the Old Woman who is actually a man called Parker Crane. Parker Crane was a serial killer known as The Bride In Black and he was abused by his mother. She is seen as a ghost wearing a white dress. She is seen throughout the film and is creepily played by actress Danielle Bisutti. Parker killed these women to please his mother and in the body of Josh, he tries to kill Josh’s family. But with the help of Elise’s spirit, her old friend Carl (Steve Coulter) and Dalton coming back into The Further to find him, Josh is reunited with his family and Parker Crane is sent back into the darkness. In the end, Carl helps Josh and Dalton suppress their memories. It is for them to forget the Further and their powers of astral projection. Ten years and two Elise orientated prequels later, we finally get a direct sequel to Insidious Chapter 2.
I felt given the response to the last Insidious film (The Last Key), that the franchise had run its course and there were no new stories to tell. The last scene of Insidious Chapter 2 had the spirit of Elise and her colleagues Specs & Tucker (Leigh Whannell & Angus Sampson) going to another house with a similar case. One of the family members in that Hispanic household (I think they were Hispanic) was played by a young pre-Wednesday Addams Jenna Ortega. The Lambert story was over, and a new story and crisis seemed ripe for a sequel. But that wasn’t the case and we got two prequels looking at the backstory of Elise. Despite their faults, they did showcase some good scares, great make up work on the new demons and more importantly showcased Lin Shaye’s talents as an actress. She carried those two movies very well. I was surprised when they announced Insidious 5 would be about the Lambert family again. The whole original crew would be involved with the films. James Wan would be on producing duties along with Jason Blum, Oren Peli and Leigh Whannell who would also be credited with a story credit. Halloween Kills and Firestarter (the 2022 one) screenwriter Scott Teems shares story credit with Leigh Whannell and is the main screenwriter. So, most of the storyline and script comes from him. Patrick Wilson who seems to be stuck in the supernatural horror genre these days directs the film and this serves as his directorial debut. I trusted that most of the people involved with this film would make an entertaining and at least frightening horror film. And they succeeded in making a very entertaining film, even though it doesn’t quite justify being made. But it was fun to watch in the cinema and I liked it all the same.
Nine-ten years have passed. Josh and Renai have divorced. All their three children are grown up. Dalton is on his way to a prestigious college to study art and his relationship with his father is estranged. They have become slowly more distant over the years, due to the fogginess that Josh has been feeling in his mind. He in many ways became distant from them. The audience is aware of what the fogginess means. Plus, we get a little previously on Insidious style re-cap at the beginning with archival footage from Insidious Chapter 2 to remind us what happened. After a friendly suggestion from Renai, Josh decides to drive Dalton to college to bond with him again. There’s some cheesy dad talk from Josh which is delightful. Patrick Wilson is a great actor. A very underrated one. He has great chemistry with Ty Simpkins. Just wish they got more screentime together. Dalton meets his roommate Chris Winslow played by Sinclair Daniel. It seems that someone made a mistake in the head office and didn’t know Chris was a woman. Chris and Dalton become fast friends and Sinclair Daniel steals the whole film. A real bubbly and lovably fun performance. This I believe is Sinclair’s first big film. So, she knocked it out of the park. In Dalton’s first art class, his teacher Professor Armagan played by Succession actress Hiam Abbass tells her new students to paint something and go deep into their memories. In doing this exercise, Dalton unlocks the memories of the past and begins to slowly remember the lost year gone from his mind. In doing so, Josh starts to see things to. The Further and the horrors that lurk in there are not quite done with The Lamberts.
I was in a bit of a horror mood after watching this. I went home and poured up a glass of Chianti and watched David Bruckner’s The Night House. A film I hadn’t seen before but had heard was a good film. And it was great film. I watched it with my girlfriend who very rarely watches horror films. We both jumped and got scared at the same moments in the film. I went in blind with The Night House. I didn’t really know what the plot was and all I knew was that it starred Rebecca Hall. I didn’t watch any trailers for it either. So, I basically didn’t know what to expect. It’s a very unpredictable film with very unpredictable scares. One extremely frightening moment I did not see coming that made me and my girlfriend both jump off the sofa. A well-executed surprise and jump scare from David Bruckner. The Night House was already suspenseful, and I was on edge from the first 5 minutes. Still, it was a real chef’s kiss moment. It made me want to watch the Hellraiser film that David Bruckner directed, which came out last year.
Insidious: The Red Door was still fresh in my when watching The Night House. I couldn’t help but compare the two films. Both Bruckner and Patrick Wilson do things differently. Patrick Wilson did a really fine job on his first film as a director. Having done so many of these horror films from the Insidious and the Conjuring franchises, he knows all the tricks and the trades and learnt enough from his frequent collaborator James Wan to make a good horror film. But one aspect he didn’t grasp fully (and what David Bruckner did extremely well with The Night House) was being convey this feeling of tension and suspense that plays throughout the film. I’m not saying James Wan is a master of suspense either, but he does it better than some of the directors of the films he produces in the Insidious and Conjuring franchises. Insidious: The Red Door has a couple of excellent set pieces, one of which involves an MRI scanner. That was a real terrifying moment and a claustrophobic scary scene that made you feel like you were in the machine. But I think the movie further highlights an issue with most of these modern mainstream horror films. A lot of their scares are kind of the same and this is quite evident in these films. Especially in this franchise. Mostly in the non-directed James Wan films. You kind of know what the scare is going to be and where it will probably come from. Mark Kermode, the English critic and well-known fan of horror, categorises these horror movies as ‘Cattle Prod Cinema’. You get a little jab from a cattle prod when you’re supposed to be scared and everything goes on the same beats. Quiet, quiet, BANG! And then quiet, quiet BANG again. And so on and so forth. It’s all about surprise than it is about suspense. The atmosphere in the movies is good but you need more than that. I just watched trailer for second Nun film: The Nun 2 (or the Nunjuring Part 2 as I like to call it) and all the scares seem similar to the ones in the previous films in the Conjuring franchise. I am sure it will be entertaining and fun. At least I hope it is. I was not a fan of the first Nun, which was disappointing given how iconic the Nun (played by Bonnie Aarons) was in The Conjuring 2. A lot of these films feel like beginner films for those who are not affiliated or well versed with the horror genre. They are good starter films for people who aren’t familiar with horror films is basically what I am saying. Like you can start with this and work your way to the good and better stuff.
But all in all, Insidious: The Red Door is a lot better than I initially thought it was going to be. It was entertaining at least. This is a fine and effective horror film with a nice enough emotional core that they could have been explored more. It was satisfying to finally get a direct sequel to Chapter 2 after two okay Lin Shaye orientated prequels. There’s some good scares & Patrick Wilson conjures up some nice suspense. He learnt all he needed to learn from James Wan. Still, most filmmakers making these films with him as a producer ending up not quite having his horror movie director charm. They may use him as an influence, but sometimes they falter on the scary/suspense front. They get the basics right, but I think they stick too close to how he does horror and don’t go further (no pun intended) and do anything fairly new and innovatively scary. Apart from The Conjuring 1 & 2 and also Annabelle: Creation, some of the films in that franchise do blend into one another and it does just become quite samey. Which again is sort of the problem with most mainstream horror these days that I have basically written about in this review. That’s not to say it’s all bad. But it’s not doing anything challenging. I do believe that these films are made for beginner horror movie watchers. They are entertainingly scary, but most of them don’t linger too much on you. In this 5th Insidious film, some of the scares/scenarios are repetitive. There’s not much new ground being explored, and it seems like the filmmakers have gotten as far into The Further as they can and there’s not much more to cover. Ironically enough because it seems like The Further goes on forever. It’s one of those horror franchises where we’ve seen it all. Like where can you go & maybe there wasn’t much warranty from the screenplay to make a sequel. Like I said, I wanted to see more of the estranged father and son dynamic. There should have been more scenes with Patrick Wilson and Ty Simpkins. There were some interesting avenues they could have gone further down, but they didn’t.
Patrick Wilson does direct two fine jumpy moments that made me jump in the cinema. He’s great as Josh too, but Ty Simpkins as Dalton carries the whole film. He was great in the first two Insidious Chapters and he was great in this one too. He was very captivating. It should still be highlighted that the film’s MVP was Sinclair Daniel. It was nice to see Hiam Abbas from Succession in this. 2/3rds of the film are strong. But the last 1/3rd of the film has a faulty ending. It does rush to get to the finishing line. It’s a little bit too neat and tidy and has one of the worst on the nose/cheesy lines ever spoken in a film that is meant to highlight the main theme of the film. The stakes seem high. But upon further inspection they’re not. There was room for improvement on the story and screenplay front. Insidious: The Red Door is not in anyways game changing, but it is still a good time at the cinema. Or at home if you choose to watch it there.
- Anders
3/5
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